People say that but it doesn't ring true in my experience. Let's face it, you're just paying more for the same service if you book directly.
Booking.com was zero help at all when I called them. None. They couldn't find or book me another hotel, and basically just told me that there was nothing they could do besides refund my money.
There are many, many stories like this.
Don't get me wrong, I actually like Booking. I think it's a great way for smaller properties to get visibility without having to build and maintain that web presence themselves. But when it goes wrong, don't expect them to go to bat for you. They are incentivized to keep making money, and threatening to delist hotels for fucking over customers when the hotel clearly messed up is clearly not a game they have decided to play.
I always book directly with the hotel if I can, because, if you do that, the shit that I mentioned just doesn't happen. Sure, if it's double the price, I'll roll the dice with Booking. But it basically never is. If it's something like 5-10% of the nightly price extra, I'll pay that premium to not have to deal with any BS. Usually it's the exact same price anyway, if it's an available option (there are some hotels that literally only survive via Booking these days).
> Booking.com was zero help at all when I called them. None. They couldn't find or book me another hotel, and basically just told me that there was nothing they could do besides refund my money.
I get that you were in a very difficult position, but if there weren’t any hotel rooms, what were you expecting Booking.com to do? And what did the hotel do to help you?
> I always book directly with the hotel if I can, because, if you do that, the shit that I mentioned just doesn't happen.
Of course it does. Booking.com didn't invent double bookings.
But they didn’t do any of that. They just said, sorry, can’t help you. Which is fine, but be aware of that and don’t sing their praises from the rooftops and advocate for them by saying “why would you not use them over booking first party?”
I think Booking.com is by far more reliant upon repeat customers than hotels. If a hotel screws up a booking, sure the customer isn’t going to come back but they probably weren’t even if they had a good experience – people travel to lots of different places. If Booking.com screws up a booking, they very probably lost a repeat customer – Booking.com gets used again and again even when people travel to many different places. Booking.com’s incentives are more closely aligned with the traveller than the hotel’s are.
If what you say is true, I would think that there would be evidence of some sort of punitive action from booking.com for poor behavior like this. As far as I know, such evidence does not exist.
Don't get me wrong, generally not a fan of middlemen. But the experience when booking a hotel directly comes down to the owners/management, and it's going to vary wildly compared to one of these big aggregators.
In the UK there are large chains such as Travelodge who have pulled out from booking.com entirely and made people go to their site.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/XtDkLZj.png
Which is maybe as much of an argument as any, if it had put pressure on the processors to minimize or eliminate the fee and find alternative revenue streams to sustain themselves and build out the network. Instead we got a world where the fee has been static forever and the gains from automation have gone to cashback and rewards programs for customers, ultimately making it more expensive to pay with cash.
What privacy concerns are you alleviating by not signing up for the hotels loyalty program? They are going to ask for ID when you get there and many require a credit card hold.
In general, the Hotel would not be offering a rewards program if it did not benefit them more than it cost. At the very least they are going to use your "free account" to try to get you to use that Hotel (chain) more.
Who do you think is more likely to sell your information to third parties - a hotel brand that has every incentive to keep your information to themselves or an aggregator?
> cost. At the very least they are going to use your "free account" to try to get you to use that Hotel (chain) more.
And a third party aggregator won’t try to get you to use their site more?
Every single hotel I have been to already requires your ID and records your information at check in. In fact, it is required by pretty much all city laws in the US.
I also would not want to stay in a hotel that does not require it.
So far I do not receive any junk mail other than credit card offers, which I take advantage of for the bonus.
But, sure, I'm obviously an idiot! I'm just over here drooling stupidly while I get better and/or cheaper hotel rooms.
The annoying thing is that should so obviously be the case! Booking direct should always be cheaper and better, right? But I've found that even if booking.com is cheaper the hotel refuses to match the price when booking directly. And they never told me about any loyalty scheme :/
We stayed in Hilton brand hotels for around 160 days over the last year.
You don’t get loyalty points and days don’t count toward status when booking through a third party. With Hilton, those loyalties points can account for 20%-35% toward future stays. Meaning if I spend $100, I will get points worth $20-$35 toward future stays. Based on rooms I’ve already booked this year with just points, we are staying free for 25 days in 5 cities this year. Of course point accumulation is a lot slower for most people. But there are a lot of people who stay in hotels using other folks money when traveling for business.
Most hotels chains also have a “lowest price guarantee” where they will match a price found on a third party site.
This isn’t even mentioning all of the hassle you can avoid dealing with hotels directly if things go wrong or if you just don’t like the service.
Last year, I booked a 7 day half work half personal stay in San Francisco at the Hilton Financial district. It was a run down dump. I went to the front desk, told them I would be cancelling the rest of my stay and booked another hotel - the Hilton Parc 55 - for the rest of the week.
The first hotel charged me for one night. That would have been much more of a hassle going through a third party site. First you would have to hope that Hilton gave the money back to booking.com and then go through the hassle of getting your money back from them.
On that same note, I booked a regular room at Parc 55, messaged the hotel on the app before I got there and asked did they have any free Diamond upgrades available. They upgraded me to the fitness room - with a gym inside the room - for free. You don’t get those benefits when booking through a third party.